Like last week's "Foxcatcher," "American Sniper" is a real-life story with an inherently tragic ending. With both films, you go in knowing that a protagonist will have his life cut short in a hail of violence, a fact that lends the proceedings an aura of fatalism and regret that's impossible to shake.

Director Clint Eastwood's movie — which has taken in more than $200 million at the box office so far and been nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture — tells the tale of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who served in the Iraq war. Known as the most lethal sniper in American military history, Kyle had 160 confirmed kills during his four tours of duty. The movie is based on his memoir; the year after it was published, Kyle died not in battle but in civilian life, murdered by a disturbed veteran he was trying to help.

Since the film was released — it came out in major metros weeks before it hit local theaters — it has come under criticism for its alleged jingoism; detractors feel that it glorifies war and makes apologies for America's misbegotten invasion of Iraq. To which I say: Did we see the same movie?

While Eastwood — who infamously offered a conservative screed to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention — may be no one's idea of a leftie, "American Sniper" in no way glamorizes military life, the heat of battle or its aftermath. Yes, Kyle (as portrayed by Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper in a fine, thoughtful, richly textured turn) is an unabashed patriot who joins the armed forces with the specific goal of defending the nation against terrorism. But the recruitment-poster ethos ends there.

The war that Kyle fights is brutal, wrenching and deeply confusing; his first two kills are not enemy soldiers, but a mother and son trying to launch grenades against a U.S. convoy. Kyle loses comrades; he makes bad decisions; he often prays that his targets won't force him to pull the trigger. Ultimately, he develops PTSD that nearly costs him his marriage and his relationship with his two young children.

When Kyle finally comes home for good and a disabled veteran whose life he saved tries to thank him — and tell Kyle's son that his dad is a genuine hero — Cooper shows us that he's no gung-ho G.I. Joe; on the contrary, he's so uncomfortable at the praise, he's practically crawling out of his skin. Directed by Dirty Harry or not, "American Sniper" is as strong an argument against the Iraq war as you're likely to see on a mainstream screen.

Yes, the film's last few minutes don't work; you feel like it ends either too soon or too late. At the 11th hour, for the first time, it devolves into less-than-credible treacle. Maybe it's true that in the final few moments that Kyle's wife ever spent with her doomed husband, she did indeed give him a saccharine speech about how glad she was that he'd recovered from his PTSD, come back to his family and made them proud — but it sure feels more like a Hollywood ending than real life.

The movie concludes with Kyle getting into his pickup truck with a shifty-looking young man (who, of course, is the vet who'd kill him hours later) followed by a line of text informing us of his fate. Then we see news footage of Kyle's actual funeral — the procession reportedly stretched an unfathomable 200 miles — set to a sappy soundtrack.

In the context of what has come before, it feels all wrong. It's a shame that after two deeply thoughtful — and appropriately unsettling — hours, "American Sniper" ends on such a discordant note.

And yes: maybe people who crave a simplistic, rah-rah celebration of U.S. military might will mistake Eastwood's film for something it's not. But they're clearly not looking at the anguish on Cooper's face after he pulls the trigger.

RATING:★★★½

Saulnier is the Ithaca Journal's film critic. She appears weekly at 8:45 a.m. Friday and 9:50 a.m. Saturday on WHCU's Morning Newswatch show.